Saturday Times 25149 (28th April)

Author   linxitPosted on Categories Weekend Cryptic
Solving time 22:22, although the last five minutes of that was spent puzzling over 15ac. I had a real “D’oh!” moment when I saw it, having convinced myself that “taking off coat” meant “remove first and last letters of”. The rest of it was of about average difficulty for a Saturday.

Across
1 WEDDING – WED(nesday) + DING (sound of bells), &lit.
5 DUBAI – BUD (American friennd) reversed + A1 (fine).
9 ALONG – (N(ame), goal)*
10 SOLEMNITY – M(ass) inside SOLE (only) + (tiny)*
11 AT PEACE – AT P.E. (exercising) + ACE (wonderful).
12 PREVAIL – RE (about) + V(olume) inside PAIL (bucket).
13 FOR A CHANGE – FORA (Roman squares) + CHANGE (coins).
15 BETH – MACBETH (play) without the MAC (coat) on. Obvious in hindsight, but see above! Beth is the second letter of the Hebrew alphabet.
18 NICK – double definition.
20 PROSPECTOR – PRO (one paid) + (in)SPECTOR.
23 LOWBROW – LOW + BROW are eye-rhymes, but that’s not much wordplay to go on. The checking letters were helpful though.
24 NETBALL – NELL (little girl, i.e. shortened girl’s name) around TBA (To Be Announced).
25 WARM FRONT – WAR (battles) + M(iles) + FRONT (army’s forward position).
26 BLISS – first letters of Boy Loose In Sweet Shop.
27 SEDGE – S(mall) + EDGE (border).
28 TILLAGE – TILL AGE.

Down
1 WHOOPER – WE + R(iver) around HOOP (ring). A species of swan.
2 DOGWATCH – DO (act) + G(rand) + WATCH (must be for old committee, but it’s not in Chambers). A ship’s watch of 4-6pm or 6-8pm, two hours instead of the usual four. Correction – it is in Chambers, as pointed out by Keriothe, but in my copy it’s over the page from the main set of definitions, which is why I missed it.
3 ISSUE – TISSUE (of lies) without the first letter.
4 GALAPAGOS – PAG (short opera, for Pagliacci, often performed in a double-bill with Cavalleria rusticana as Cav and Pag) inside GALA (festive performance) and SO (thus) reversed.
5 DAMSEL – LEAD (be first) reversed around MS (address for a young lady).
6 BRIGADE – BADE (ordered) around RIG (clothing).
7 IDYLL – hidden reversed in hilly district.
8 PARAFFIN – PARA (short for paragraph, block of text) + NIFF (stink) reversed.
14 ARROWROOT – ARROW (pointer) + ROOT (one perhaps deep in plot). Powdered rhizome of a West Indian plant, used as a thickener in soups and sauces etc. Which reminds me we’re almost out of it, better put it on the shopping list.
16 HARMLESS – H(ouse) + ARM LESS (dispense with some weapons).
17 VERTEBRA – VERT (green, French or heraldry) + B(lack) inside ERA (time).
19 COWERED – COD (fish) around WERE (used to be).
21 TEATIME – TEAT (source of milk) + I’M + E(xplore).
22 TRIFLE – (filter)*
23 LEWIS – WEL(l) (almost spring reversed) + I(sland)’S. The northern half of the island of Lewis and Harris in the Outer Hebrides.
24 NATAL – NA (sodium) and AL (aluminium) around T(ime).

13 comments on “Saturday Times 25149 (28th April)”

  1. 2dn refers to the Watch Committee: “formerly, a committee of a local governing body exercising supervision over police services, etc” (Chambers). This clue took me half of the 24 minutes I spent solving this puzzle, and it irritated the hell out of me. I enjoyed the rest of the puzzle though. Particularly liked the use of PAG.

    Edited at 2012-05-05 11:31 am (UTC)

    1. I’d heard of the Watch Committee, which was fortunate. I’m more familiar with “Watch” as a kind of early police force – as in Rembrandt’s “Night Watch” and like Dogberry and Co in “Much Ado About Nothing”.
    2. Ah, so it is, over the page in the current edition of Chambers. I should have looked harder.
  2. I enjoyed this very much. Nice eureka moment when I finally saw BETH, which was my last in. 30 minutes. I really appreciate the blogger on a Saturday for giving so much time and effort for such a small respose. I always save the Saturday puzzle to do on the morning of the blog, so it’s still fresh in my mind. It’s a pity it doesn’t attract more comments. Many thanks to Linxit and the other weekend bloggers.
  3. Interesting.. in my case 2dn went straight in (Hornblower 🙂 and so did 15ac, but I spent ages trying to understand why Galapagos was right.. if everyone gets hung up on a different clue, it can’t be too bad a crossword 🙂
    The rather daft concept of “eye-rhymes” was new to me
  4. 55 minutes held up for ages at the end by (Mac)BETH, PARAFFIN and NICK. My problem at 5dn was having the incorrect DOCK at 8ac. I took ages after completing the grid to see the reasoning behind LOWBROW at 23ac; I realise now that I have met ‘eye-rhyme’ before but inconveniently forgot it existed.

    I agree it’s a shame that Saturday puzzles draw so little comment and I feel even sorrier for Jumbo bloggers, always feeling guilty that I can’t comment on those because I rarely allow myself to tackle them as they take me too long.

    Edited at 2012-05-05 04:54 pm (UTC)

  5. At 31′, this was probably my fastest Saturday puzzle ever; they usually take me longer than the Jumbo. I suspect that Nell in NETBALL is Little Nell from Dickens’s ‘Old Curiosity Shop’; she whose death scene, as Oscar Wilde said, no one could read without shedding tears of laughter. BETH was my LOI, too; I came up with it, and 16d, but couldn’t justify them for a long time. I had to cheat to get DOGWATCH; I knew it was DOGsomething, but couldn’t recall WATCH. Thanks for the explanation of 4d and 23d; all I could think of for PAG was Paganini, which even I knew wouldn’t work. And I took the ‘over’ in 23d to mean ‘over’, and racked my brains to think of an LEW? that means ‘spring’.
  6. Yes,thank you, linxit for the blog. I agree with falooker and jackkt that it must be slightly disheartening for the blogger if only The Few respond. BETH was my LOI as well but I was very pleased when the penny finally dropped, although I obviously misunderstood “character”. Never knew about the connection with the Hebrew alphabet. Add that to Greek mythology and alphabet as areas I need to bone up on. 75mins and some secs for me. LEWIS was my COD. I knew about WATCH as my local town, Royal Tunbridge Wells, had a watch committee which banned The Beatles from playing at the Assembly Hall. I think it was because they feared the hordes of screaming girls who would have descended on the town.
  7. I had DOGPATCH instead of DOGWATCH. (A blind guess.) Otherwise I finished, though I had a lot of question marks as usual.

    I’m especially thankful to linxit for the parsing of PROSPECTOR.

    Why are the Saturday blogs always a week late?

    Edited at 2012-05-08 08:47 am (UTC)

    1. Because it’s a prize puzzle – we don’t give away the answers until after the closing date (unlike some places I could mention). You’ll notice that the Sunday and Mephisto blogs are also a week late, and the Jumbo blogs two weeks late, for the same reason.
  8. Thanks from Oz for your blog – it’s my port of last (and usually utterly desperate) resort. Makes it a little tricky sometimes when the clues and answers are rooted in slang or geography specific to England – but that’s also half the fun.
    Cheers!

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